Driving and Texting; A Combination Deadlier Than Drinking and Driving, Hopefully, Will Become Illegal Soon In Florida.

Texting and driving has been proven to be a dangerous and common combination, which should be banned for the safety of our citizens and visitors.  We all need to support and applaud Republican Representative Doug Holder from Sarasota, Florida who has been pushing hard for the Legislature to pass a bill that would ban text messaging (writing or reading) while operating a motor vehicle in Florida.  The Legislature will meet next month to make a decision on this important potential life saving issue and hopefully make it a law and not just a personal choice to not drive and text message.

In the Gainesville Sun article today, Texting Roadblock? Lawmaker: Put breaks on text messaging while driving, which discussed Rep. Holder's bill, the Staff writer interviewed several University of Florida students to get their opinions of the proposed bill.   One student was quoted as saying, "I think it should be legal, it's at your own risk." 

As an accident attorney in Gainesville, Ocala and all of North Florida for over 37 years, that has seen first hand the devastating effects that a serious accident can inflict on all the people and their families involved in a crash, I have to strongly disagree with this student's point of view.  Texting while driving is definitely not "at your own risk", but rather at the risk of other drivers, passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists and everyone that is sharing the road with you.  According to the National Safety Council, a driver is 4x's more likely to be in a car crash while talking on the cell phone. Studies have not been released yet in regards to text messaging while driving; however, as texting requires one's eyes to be off the road, the statistics could only be dramatically higher.  Here are some other facts and findings to support my opinion.

The Transportation Research Laboratory in London studied the change in reaction times due to various influences while operating a motor vehicle.  The results showed a 35% decrease in reaction time while texting (reading or writing), and a 12% decrease with alcohol consumption at the legal limit.   According to this study, texting while driving causes a nearly three fold decrease in reaction time as compared to the drinking at the legal limit and driving reaction time.

National Safety Council (NSC) president, Janet Froetscher, encourages friends to take a friend's cell phone away just as they would take away their car keys if they had been drinking.  The NSC which works to educate the public, would also like to see the cultural norms of our society change so that we would see the use of cell phones, talking or texting, as "unsafe and socially unacceptable". 

A recent study by the NSC showed that nearly 40% of teens and young adults surveyed admitted to texting while driving.

According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, only seven States and DC have laws banning texting while driving including, Alaska, California. In these States it is a Primary Offense, which means a police officer can stop a driver for texting while driving and does not need any other reason to make the stop.  Nine states prohibit novice drivers from texting while driving.  Currently, Florida has no bans of any kind; it is even legal for bus drivers to be texting while driving a bus full of young children. 

If Rep. Holder's bill is passed by the Legislature, our roads will be a safer place for everyone. The combination of texting and driving has been proven and documented to be a potentially deadly mixture for yourself and for everyone else on or near the road around you. Texting and driving should not be a personal choice issue, anymore than driving drunk should be.

My advice?
If you are going to drive, then drive.  If you are going to text message, then text message. If you need to text message while you are driving, be safe and pull over.  Hopefully it will soon be the law!

Here are our previous blogs on this topic. 

We Don't Have To Wait For It To Be The Law To Turn Off Our Cell Phones.

Operation Bluebird Is Commendable: But We Need More!

We Need To Get MADD about Driving and Cell Phone Use!